New Drive Under Way To End Highway Tolls

September 06, 1999|By Rogers Worthington, Tribune Staff Writer.

Few unkept public commitments have rankled Russell Johnson--and untold other citizens--like the one made 42 years ago for the Illinois tollway system: that once the bonds to build the original toll roads were paid off, tolls would end.

Far from ending, tolls may someday even be increased to pay for $2 billion to $4 billion in reconstruction and expansion of the 41-year-old system, state tollway authority Chairman Arthur Philip said in July, although he later added that no increase is currently planned.

Still, the news cheered Johnson, a retired bus driver for the Illinois Institute of Technology who in January started "No Tolls, Inc." out of his Sugar Grove home in Kane County.

"It's good for our cause," said Johnson, 66, a soft-spoken man who expects any talk of a toll hike to increase anti-toll activism.

He traces his own activism to his experience on Illinois toll roads, commuting daily to his job in Chicago.

"When I was waiting in those lanes to pay money for using roads I know should be free, that really irritated me over all these years," he said.

In its literature, "No Tolls" also decries the lost time, money and fuel spent at toll plazas when motorists already pay motor fuel taxes.

The organization has a quarterly newsletter, a post office box, a Web site (www.notolls.org), and a mailing list of 560 names that it inherited from other anti-toll activists.

Others have tried to end tolls in Illinois--and failed. Political candidates who vow to end them rarely make it into office. Lawyers who sue to end them never taste victory. And no bill to end the tollway system has ever come before the Illinois legislature for a roll-call vote.

"The fundamental problem is, it's not a statewide issue," said state Sen. Steven Rauschenberger (R-Elgin), who chairs the Senate's Appropriations Committee. Downstaters are loath to pay more taxes to maintain northern Illinois toll roads, said Rauschenberger, who favors ending the tollway system.

So, apparently, does Gov. George Ryan. When asked about them last month, he said "If I have my way, we'll abolish those tolls."

But Johnson's effort comes at a time when the tollway's scandal-battered image has improved a bit, and its electronic toll collection system I-PASS is, little by little, speeding more motorists through otherwise congested toll gates each day.

Tollway and state transportation officials, meanwhile, argue that the state could not afford to take on the costs of maintaining the 274 miles of toll roads.

"The reason no bill (to end tolls) made it to the floor is that legislators realize the price tag associated with it," said Donald O'Toole, spokesman for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority.

Elsewhere, new toll roads are being planned in cities such as Houston and Austin, Texas, while old toll roads have been turned into freeways in Connecticut, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Denver.

As car engines become more efficient, some predict a falloff in motor fuel taxes, the chief source of revenue for maintaining roadways. This makes toll systems, with their promise of delay-free electronic toll collection and growing revenue streams, an attractive way to finance new highways.

Still, the urge to turn tollways into freeways in Illinois persists.

"No Tolls" has no financial plan for maintaining the toll roads once tolls are ended. Johnson figures that's for the General Assembly to decide. "We don't pretend to have all the answers," he said.

Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Schmidt would maintain former toll roads with $170 million a year from a $2.6 billion trust fund created from tolls accumulated over a decade or so.

Others have suggested drawing on federal interstate and national highway funds, roughly $20 million a year of which former toll roads would be eligible for, or leasing or selling commercially valuable tollway land alongside plazas and oases.

Tollway officials say these schemes would take money from state roads and still not cover tollway capital improvement needs, such as rebuilding roads and adding I-PASS electronic toll collection lanes.

"You can get by if you cut out a lot of frills, like a new roof on a house. But sooner or later the roof collapses on you and affects the rest of the house," O'Toole said.

Many toll foes argue that the most workable solution is an increase in the state's motor fuels tax. But that takes anti-tollway activists back to their biggest obstacle: getting a General Assembly floor vote on a bill to end tolls and shut down the tollway authority, which is viewed by many as a bastion of Republican patronage in northeastern Illinois.

Here, Johnson may have some allies. Former Democratic State Treasurer Patrick Quinn, who called for ending tolls when he ran for secretary of state in 1994, says he plans to lead a signature drive this fall for an amendment to enable voters to force the General Assembly by petition to take a roll-call vote on a bill within 30 days.

Quinn and Schmidt see a yes-no roll call vote as a way to hold suburban legislators--especially Republican legislators--accountable on the issue of ending tolls.

Meanwhile, the "No Tolls" plan is to build support among college students and launch a letter-writing campaign to legislators. Johnson says he'll provide anyone interested with sample letters, bumper stickers and postcards, and the names and addresses of their legislators.

In return, he says "No Tolls" will ask for the names of four others who also would like to end tolls. If everything goes as planned, legislators will be receiving more cards and letters every month, he said.

Johnson, who is aware of previous failures, is resigned to a long struggle. But he exudes confidence that the campaign eventually will work.

"It's going to take a long time. But it can be done," he said. "I know it can."